ut to the art
museum and spent the afternoon in the quiet galleries where the
masters, little and great, are hung.

He came downtown at nightfall, threading the paths of the public
gardens and the common malls of Charles and Beacon Streets, with a
feeling of immense calm in his soul. Tunis Latham possessed keenly
contrasting attributes of character. On the one hand he was of a
rather practical mind and thought; on the other, his love of beauty
and appreciation of nature's greater forces might have made of him
an artist under more liberal conditions of birth and breeding.

Ida May Bostwick had rasped all the finer feelings of the captain
of the _Seamew_. He was happy to be able to get her out of his mind.
In fact, he had put aside thought of any girl. Romance no longer
enmeshed his cogitations. He was utterly calm, unruffled, serene, as
he descended by the twists and turns of certain streets beyond the
State House and came out finally upon the now lighted and bustling
square.

He halted, like a pointer dog, before the eating place where he had
had breakfast.

Tunis Latham felt a certain shock. That girl with the violet eyes
had been farthest from his thought at the moment, and for some hours
now. He had lumped together the whole girl question and had
relegated it to the back of his mind.

And perhaps he was cured. He looked at it more sensibly after the
first moment. It was not thought of the girl that had brought him
here. Habit is strong in most of us. The urge of a healthy appetite
was more likely what had caused him to halt before the restaurant
door.

It was after seven. Following his walk from the Back Bay it was
little wonder that he was hungry. But should he enter this place?
There were several other restaurants in sight of about the same
standard. Tunis Latham did not make a practice of patronizing places
similar to the Barquette when he ate alone.

To pass on and enter another restaurant would be to confess
weakness. He really cared nothing about that girl with the violet
eyes. She very probably was no better and no worse than Ida May
Bostwick. All these city shopgirls were about of a pattern. He had
allowed sentiment to sway him for a few hours. But sentiment had
received a jolt during his interview with the girl from the lace
department of Hoskin & Marl's.

"Cat's foot!" ejaculated the captain of the _Seamew_. "I guess I'm
not afraid to take another look at that girl, if she's in here.
Probably t